


here comes the sun

by anomalousity



Series: various drabbles [22]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 22:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2126871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalousity/pseuds/anomalousity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stevie, it’s noon.” And that; that depreciating Brooklyn accent teasing him with that nickname, that’s what does it.</p><p>He wipes a hand over his face and stares at a ghost. A ghost, that Steve remarks, should be four years dead somewhere in West Germany. He still has his dog tags, for Christ’s sake.</p><p>So, doing what any sensible guy would do in this situation, Steve reaches for the switchblade he keeps in his nightstand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here comes the sun

**Author's Note:**

> Title's from The Beatles for the 693rd time.
> 
> Yell at me on [tumblr](http://buckybaarnes.co.vu/).

“Good morning.”

Steve grumbles and rolls over, not wanting to wake up. The sun is already burning a warm spot onto the sheets on his legs, and his bedroom is bright enough to paint the insides of his eyelids a bright red. He mumbles a halfhearted, “fuck off,” before tucking his head beneath the pillows and relaxing into his mattress.

The voice that spoke to him sighs and a weight shifts beside Steve before he realizes the problem.

It takes him a moment to get on his feet, to blink away the bright spots that form in his vision when the sunlight temporarily blinds him. He grumbles again because why is there someone in his apartment? He doesn’t remember being drunk, nor does he remember having a boyfriend much less inviting a man over to stay the night.

“Stevie, it’s noon.” And that; that depreciating Brooklyn accent teasing him with that nickname, that’s what does it.

He wipes a hand over his face and stares at a ghost. A ghost, that Steve remarks, should be four years dead somewhere in West Germany. He still has his dog tags, for Christ’s sake.

So, doing what any sensible guy would do in this situation, Steve reaches for the switchblade he keeps in his nightstand.

Of course, Bucky catches him before he can grab it. “Calm down, Steve,” he says, sounding a little less like himself, more withdrawn, less rambunctious. Steve only fights against the arms wrapped around his waist, despite the futility of it. If anything, Bucky’s grown bigger since his deployment, and if anything, Steve’s gotten skinnier.

He sighs after a last ditch effort before slumping back into his mattress and staring up at a dead man. “I thought you died,” he says, for lack of anything else better to say.

“I did,” Bucky replies.

Steve snorts at that. “Obviously fuckin’ not,” he muses, rolling his eyes. “Dead guys don’t just go find their old pals and tackle them into bed with half assed stories and… is that makeup? What would your mother say, knowing you were painting yourself like one of the working girls?”

Bucky sighs before leaning back, thighs spread wide over Steve’s hips and hand trailing a frigid trail down Steve’s chest. There’s something not right about the feeling; Steve peers down to find the unnatural glint of silver fingers opening up to an intimidating, plated prosthesis. His eyes skate up the arching muscles, the coiled bicep, the scratched out, mangled chunk of metal at the shoulder.

He catches himself reaching for it before he stops and looks at Bucky. “Can I?”

It’s a minute before Bucky nods his head.

The prosthesis _feels_ dangerous. There’s a thrum just under the shining plating, like Bucky’s tensing up to tear something down; who knows, maybe he is. Steve draws his fingers down the artificial tendon, pausing over the little joints connecting at the elbow, before brushing his fingers back up to the shoulder. He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him when he pulls his fingers off, and he glances up to meet them.

“How?” he asks, for lack of better question.

Bucky shrugs with his cybernetic arm. “That’s a pretty big question, Stevie,” he murmurs. Then he catches Steve’s hand in his own and pulls it close. His breath tickles between Steve’s knuckles when he says, “I fell a long way.”

“Fell?”

“I _did_ die, Stevie, but I came back.” Bucky smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Steve doesn’t even bother to ask before tugging his hands out of Bucky’s hold and wrapping them around his waist. Bucky lets himself fall into Steve, into the crushing hug and hooks his chin over Steve’s shoulder. “I’m glad I’m back,” he breaths against Steve’s neck.

So is Steve. “Me too,” he replies, pushing a kiss to the long, tufty hair wisping down his face. “I’m so happy, Buck.”

Steve doesn’t know how long they sit like that, with Bucky’s strange arm whirring with each twitch of the artificial muscles and tendons. Bucky eventually starts kissing at Steve’s neck, murmuring phrases in a language that Steve couldn’t understand if he tried. Whenever he tries to ask Bucky what he’s saying, he always leans back to kiss Steve’s mouth, then he goes back to his ministrations at Steve’s neck.

Eventually, eventually, he pulls away all together and pulls them so they’re lying side by side on the bed, Steve’s head pillowed on Bucky’s arms and they’re legs tangled above the sheets. It’s a little awkward; Bucky’s fully dressed and Steve’s wearing nothing save for the skimpy boxers just barely hanging onto his hips and a too small t-shirt that he remembers his ‘ma buying for him when he turned thirteen.

“Hey,” Bucky murmurs when he catches Steve dozing off.

Steve blinks his eyes open. “Hmm?”

Bucky leans forward and kisses the side of his mouth, grinning that strange new grin before pulling away and brushing his fingers through Steve’s hair.

“You know how we used to sit like this back in our apartment in Brooklyn?” he asks, drawing a line down the side of Steve’s face. “You’d like to lie in the sun, but if I was already there you wouldn’t say anything and just grumble about it to yourself.”

He snorts. “That’s because you’d always pick me up and lay me on your chest like a kid, Buck.”

It just gets him a shrug in reply. “Whatever, you still smiled.” His fingers catch around Steve’s jaw, tilting it upward so he’s eye to eye with Bucky.

“I did.”

“I love you.”

“I lo-what?” Steve knows he’s blushing but he can’t help it. Hell, he doesn’t even care if he is because Bucky’s just looking at him with that same calm expression, like he’s found all the answers and doesn’t give a shit if anyone likes them or not because he’s made his peace. Well, Steve supposes that facing death and whatever the hell happened to him in Germany would be changing, but he never would’ve thought it to be in any way a good thing.

“I love you,” he repeats, not flinching when he says it and sounding fully committed. “You have to know that, Stevie, because last time I didn’t tell you…”

Last time he didn’t say anything he was drafted to a war he didn’t believe in and killed in action. Last time, he left Steve naked in their bed, snoozing away and blissfully unaware that Bucky was headed to an unstable base in Italy, where he’d be captured, and where he’d escape. Steve will get him to talk about what happened to him, because there’s no way an arm like that comes out of being taken prisoner. It comes with experimentation, and the Krauts weren’t above torturing and murdering to further their cause. Well, neither were the Americans; Steve’s still got some of the lingering effects from when he was drafted by a man who saw him morally fit. He still has a tremor in his hands, still has moments of inexplicable strength that he can’t explain.

Still hasn’t told Bucky that while he looks ninety-five pounds of frail teenage kid, he’s stronger than the best black ops infantryman.

But he ignores that, he ignores everything, to focus on the heavy, familiar weight of the arm flung over his waist, the soft pads of warm fingers teasing at the sliver of skin exposed where his shirt is hitched up.  He ignores it so he can steel himself and look him in the eye and say, “I love you too.”

“More than anything.”

“More than everything.”

Bucky laughs and flicks Steve’s hip, leaning forward to press a kiss between his eyebrows. “When did you get so devoted, punk?” he asks, soft smile tugging at the corner of his lips that’s so painfully unfitting with the new lines the years have drawn.

“When you told me you’re with me, jerk.”

He laughs though, smiling at the way Bucky’s eyes crinkle when he grins. “’til the end of the line, pal.”


End file.
